Loading question...
You are in free guest mode. Timed Practice Revision List Attempt History Progress Tracking Create a free account to unlock these tools
Back to Questions
Prev Next
IELTS Practice Reading: Match Headings ID: #56347 Easy Natural Rubber- An exotic material
Instructions ›

The reading passage has nine paragraphs A-I.

Choose the correct heading for paragraphs from the list of headings below.

Tap any word for its meaning

Natural Rubber- An exotic material

1

A. Today, we take modem materials very much for granted, without knowing their origin or realising their versatility. Rubber, for example, is a vital component of cars, supplying traction between the wheels and the road, as well as sealing oil and fuel from leakage and absorbing unwanted vibrations from the engine. Rubber also supplies us with many domestic items (toy balloons, water bottles, condoms, carpet underlay, mattresses and cushioning), office products (rubber bands, erasers) and articles of sports and recreation (footballs, golf balls, tennis balls, etc.). But where does rubber come from?

2

B. Natural rubber was discovered during the various invasions of South America by the Spanish conquistadors in the 15th century. The material, made simply by drying out the sap of a native tree, Hevea brasiliensis, was first spotted by Columbus in the West Indies in the 1490s, where it was used to make balls. It was also made into bags for carrying liquids by moulding flexible rubber sheet into the desired shape. Rubber was clearly a material well known to native cultures, and recent discoveries of its use in ancient ceremonies are hardly surprising.

3

C. Despite its early discovery by the Spanish, it was not until about 1730 that rubber was introduced into Britain, and not until 1791 that its use for the mackintosh (the rubberised raincoat) was introduced. In 1770 Joseph Priestley, who also discovered oxygen, noticed that rubber erases pencil marks. Despite this serendipitous finding, it still took some time before the material was to find widespread application. One reason for this was its deterioration with time, degrading in air to a sticky unmanageable mess. That was to change dramatically with the invention of ‘vulcanisation’, when, in 1834, Charles Goodyear found that cooking the material with raw sulphur stabilised it and stiffened products manufactured from the substance.

4

D. This discovery opened the way to pneumatic tyres for early vehicles such as carriages (travel in which was rather painful owing to the rigid wheels and rough roads then in existence). The first patent for a tyre dates from 1846, when Robert Thompson announced the pneumatic tyre, a great advance for wheeled traffic. The key to the idea is the cushion provided by the air pocket, the pressure of which can be varied to suit the user. The invention languished, perhaps because of problems with containing the inevitable leaks of air from the many inner tubes. However, solid rubber tyres were subsequently adopted, with much reduced cushioning.

5

E. At the same time, vulcanised rubber came to be used for an increasing number of products, such as galoshes or Wellington boots and improved mackintoshes, where rubber was combined with textile to make a waterproof fabric. The growing demand for natural rubber made it a commodity product, yet only supplied by one area in the world - Brazil. As a result, the price soared, creating rich entrepreneurs, who essentially exploited natives to collect the raw latex from the rainforest. But since the tree could potentially be grown in any tropical climate, why not collect seedlings and transplant to other countries?

6

F. Intensive efforts were made at Kew Gardens to raise healthy plants from seeds collected by Sir Henry Wickham in Brazil in 1876. The young trees raised in the tropical greenhouse at Kew were shipped to Ceylon and Malaysia to form the nucleus of large plantations. Those countries were able to meet the rising demands of the rubber industry, and the price of raw rubber fell dramatically.

7

G. In 1888, over forty years after Thompson’s invention of the pneumatic tyre, John Dunlop, a Belfast vet, responded to a request from his young son for better tyres for his trike. When ridden over the rough cobbles of Belfast's streets, solid rubber tyres just could not give a comfortable ride. Various rubber tubes were used by vets, and Dunlop re-invented the pneumatic tyre by fitting a wheel with an inflated rubber tube protected by a heavier outer cover. After much experimentation, the world’s first bicycle emerged.

8

H. Dunlop’s first patent to protect the invention was inevitably invalid because of Thompson’s prior parent, hut he went on to invent the valve and numerous other components which were proved valid. Those inventions were the base on which he and others built the bike tyre industry, which brought cycling into a new era for everyone. It was an era when industrial progress had created newfound wealth and leisure time for millions. As with any new and fundamental invention, the idea was taken up by others, in particular by Michelin in France (1896), to develop a much heavier-duty device, the car tyre.

9

I. Today a wide range of synthetic rubber is available to designers, many for specialty tasks requiring, for example, very high or low temperatures. Yet natural rubber is still a valuable international commodity, helping many developing countries earn useful hard currency. The technology of processing the raw rubber has improved greatly over the years, but the basics still remain the same as they were when Kew Gardens selected the best plants for cloning and transplanting over one hundred years ago.

9 gaps
Headings
The future OF rubber
Useful additions to an existing idea
How to grow a rubber tree
Useful for making your coat waterproof
The first known uses
Exporting new forests
Inspiration from a bumpy bicycle ride
How different is rubber nowadays?
New demand leads to dramatically escalating cost
Unpopular due to decay
A good idea in principle
Many modern uses

With a free account: Retry and compare every attempt.
Saving...